Chevrolet Bolt & Bolt EUV

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
LeftieBiker said:
So what did you get, exactly? A (color) Premiere with (interior colors) and (options), I assume. ;-)
Premier trim, silver ice metallic color, dark galvanized gray interior (because of reflections from dash complaints w/lighter colors from reviews like Edmunds + others I spoke to).
Got infotainment package, driver confidence II, and DC FC inlet.

You can walk thru this at https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-ev-electric-car/build-and-price/. MSRPs are a bit off (higher than dealer web site and Monroney sticker). Was a bit over $6000 below MSRP (including $1000 GM rebate/cash back) and several thousand below invoice. This doesn't take into account Federal tax credit, CA CVRP (I'm not eligible) and $800 from PG&E that I need to apply for.

There's no way to get surround vision (rough equivalent of AVM) nor Bose stereo (part of infotainment package) w/o going to Premier trim, unfortunately. Otherwise, I'd have gotten the LT trim and gotten a white exterior (you can't get silver on LT).
 
I well know about feature bundling. It was why I was planning to lease a Premiere when it looked like the tax credit was about to go away, and it's why I'm driving a Leaf SL with a $#@!@ leather interior. Best of luck with the Bolt, and remember: in a drag race give any Leaf driver a 1 second head start. You'll still beat them to 60. (After which they will pass you at 88MPH.)
 
Thanks GetOffYourGas and Leftie!

Will be posting more about the differences and quirks later. I can start with one though. It seems the stereo only has 15 "favorites" (station memory slots across radio sources). It appears there isn't a set for each source, which would've been sufficient.

In contrast, my '13 Leaf SV has 6 memories for each of these: AM, FM1, FM2, XM1, XM2, XM3 = 36.

+ for the Bolt: There's a nice space in the back under the "floor" for the L1 EVSE.
 
+ for the Bolt: There's a nice space in the back under the "floor" for the L1 EVSE.

You get the false floor only with the Premiere. The Leaf SL cargo organizer can do the same thing, but it's junk. Oh, and I wasn't asking what you paid, earlier. Just details of the car.
 
Some here PMed me for some Bolt impressions. I've been really busy and pointed him to some earlier posts I made.

I'm going to try avoid repeating anything I've already written.

In terms of cargo room behind the rear seats, it's definitely smaller than my '13 Leaf. This doesn't really bother me. I don't carry a ton of stuff often.

I disabled the lighting that KeiJidosha pointed me to (good), but there are still quirks w/the headlight switch that always springs back to auto. If I power up my car in my garage, the damned HID headlights turn on. It's bright out. I don't need the headlights on. Thanks for putting an extra cycle on my HIDs. :( (The HIDs are quite good, BTW. And, they're even standard on the lowest trim, LT.)

It seems like the stock wiper blades aren't very good. Others have complained about the Leaf stock ones and to me, the Mitsuba refills I got from a local Honda dealer for my Leaf are a lot better than the wipers that come w/the Bolt.

I am still annoyed by the too few memories on the stereo. Also, there doesn't seem to be any shortcut/easy way to directly switch sources on the stereo w/o poking around on the touchscreen or by navigating to a favorite/memory that happens to be a different source/radio band. I'm used to easily switching to XM, FM, aux, Bluetooth, etc. on my Leaf via the buttons on the left side of the stereo.

Also, activating camera while in drive is too many steps: home button > another button > camera vs. a single button press on Leaf.

The wiper control stalk and intermittent dial action and feel seem flimsy and cheap vs. my Leaf. And, they've reversed the directions for intermittent, off, low, high, etc. vs Toyota and Nissan conventions.

Other annoyances:
- It seems like there's no lock button at the rear hatch to lock all the doors after closing the hatch. My Leaf and Prius have that. I end up having to walk up to a door to press its lock button.
- I miss the Leaf eyebrow clock and outside temp. If I'm using CarPlay, the clock's on the left side of the big LCD and can be easy to miss or have it be blocked. There's no outside temp visible in that mode. If I use the "home screen", the clock and OAT are in the upper right.
- wished there were hardware switches for the heated seats. I usually have to turn them on myself via the LCD.
- still don't like the lack of % SoC display and having just the 20 battery bars + GOM. Yes, it's in their slow to respond app. It's about as slow as NissanConnect to respond to queries.

I've still been driving the Leaf for some of my commute to avoid having my Bolt warranty expire by mileage so I haven't really been able to test the range that much. Between Friday and Monday morning, I'd done over 114 miles and still had over 40% battery left. Quite a bit of it was at highway speeds w/heater on w/little attempt to go slow and conserve energy. Part of the weekend involved me going to Redwood City (over 31 miles away, almost all highway). If I did the round trip in my Leaf, I'd arrive home w/almost 0 juice. I took a side trip on the way back. No problem.

I do like all the gadgets I have (e.g. follow distance display, collision warning, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, etc.) But, I'm annoyed there seems to be only a single trip odometer and it's tied to the miles/kWh screen. On Leaf, there were at least 3 trip odometers and the miles/kWh displays (there were two) weren't tied to the trip odometers.

One thing that concerns me is the Big Brotherish element of OnStar. They have this "Chevrolet Smart Driver" thing (https://my.chevrolet.com/learnAbout/onstar-smart-driver) that gives you a recap of your trips including the locations you stopped at, had hard accelerations at, etc. I disabled that via https://my.chevrolet.com/onstar/settings several different times but it seems to get re-enabled. (I need to look into this more.) Even after disabling, there's no guarantee that location data isn't being transmitted.

When I have time, I'm going to look into seeing whether pulling the OnStar fuse really kills the mic on-board the car, rendering phone calls and Siri useless (don't want that). Otherwise, I'm going to look for ways to disable the GPS (e.g. disconnecting the GPS antenna, if possible) or trying to opt out of all location transmissions.

Edmunds in their long-term Bolt review has complained about windshield reflections due to their light colored dash. They recommend getting as dark a dash as possible. I did w/the dark galvanized gray interior.

Hope this doesn't come across as overly negative. I so far have no regrets. The range is incredible vs. my 11 bar '13 Leaf. I really like the better acceleration. The gadgets (e.g. safety features + CarPlay) are nice and the Bose stereo is comparable to the Bose stereo in my Leaf.
 
cwerdna said:
One thing that concerns me is the Big Brotherish element of OnStar. They have this "Chevrolet Smart Driver" thing (https://my.chevrolet.com/learnAbout/onstar-smart-driver) that gives you a recap of your trips including the locations you stopped at, had hard accelerations at, etc. I disabled that via https://my.chevrolet.com/onstar/settings several different times but it seems to get re-enabled. (I need to look into this more.) Even after disabling, there's no guarantee that location data isn't being transmitted.

When I have time, I'm going to look into seeing whether pulling the OnStar fuse really kills the mic on-board the car, rendering phone calls and Siri useless (don't want that). Otherwise, I'm going to look for ways to disable the GPS (e.g. disconnecting the GPS antenna, if possible) or trying to opt out of all location transmissions.

A brief OnStar story... I had purchased a new Chevy Silverado in 2007 that was equipped with OnStar. I never activated the account, just left it idle. Shortly after buying the truck, gas prices shot to well over $4.00/gal and I didn’t drive it very often. Most of the time the truck was locked away inside a closed garage. One day, I received an email from OnStar with a detailed diagnosic report including the current odometer reading and reminder that it was due for an oil change. They got this data despite the truck not having been unlocked or started for almost 2 months. About that time I started hunting for fuses to pull.
 
Thanks for the review. I mostly agree with your assessments.

cwerdna said:
Edmunds in their long-term Bolt review has complained about windshield reflections due to their light colored dash. They recommend getting as dark a dash as possible. I did w/the dark galvanized gray interior.

I keep hearing this, but I really find it a non-issue. I love my light dash. Yes, I understand that many (most!) places are sunnier than Syracuse. But when it is sunny, the glare is never an issue. Yes, I can see it sometimes, but it has never been a problem.
 
Forgot another quirk related to this
cwerdna said:
but there are still quirks w/the headlight switch that always springs back to auto
When I arrive at my work's parking garage, my lights are still in auto (esp. on a rainy day where it's required to have our headlights on when wipers are needed). When I'm in the dark garage, the dash display and big LCD are still at daytime brightness levels. It seems like I can't really do anything about it and have to drive around like that for 20 to 30 seconds (guessing as to duration) before it dims.

I don't have the above issues w/my Leaf given that my current Leaf doesn't have auto headlights. The moment I turn on Leaf's headlights, the dash and LCD go dimmer.

I posted basically this in another forum:
I'm annoyed by the Bolt's driver's side charging inlet vs. the center of the nose on the Leaf. If I park in our spaces for ChargePoint at work, if I want the cable to be in a where it can easily reach w/o going over my hood and contacting its paint or trying to route it under the car, I need to pick certain parking spaces, which might not be available earlier in the day. Or, if I back in to avoid hood and cable contact, it's a long stretch for the cable and I still may need to be selective as to where I park.

For a cluster of 4 spaces surrounding a dual handle station (below), I can really only park nose in for 2 of the spots to avoid paint contact or funny cable routing (possibly under the bumper). For the other two, I need to back in.

Also, for some spaces, a handle may reach fine to the Leaf's nose from far away but won't reach a Bolt because the inlet's on the wrong side of the car.

I may post a few pics/diagrams of what I'm talking about later.

We have https://www.chargepoint.com/products/commercial/ct4000/ with their spring-loaded cable management. The contacting the paint issue might not happen if they didn't have cable management (spring loading and attachment at the top) and just let the cables lay wherever like their old CT2000 series stuff (at the bottom of https://www.chargepoint.com/products/guides/). We had the CT2000 stuff in another building, but that's all been turned over to another company while we don't occupy that building.

For typical US charging arrangements, the inlet in the center of the nose is really best. I used to feel that way and this has been further reinforced now that I have a car where it's not in the center.
 
cwerdna said:
Forgot another quirk related to this
cwerdna said:
but there are still quirks w/the headlight switch that always springs back to auto
When I arrive at my work's parking garage, my lights are still in auto (esp. on a rainy day where it's required to have our headlights on when wipers are needed). When I'm in the dark garage, the dash display and big LCD are still at daytime brightness levels. It seems like I can't really do anything about it and have to drive around like that for 20 to 30 seconds (guessing as to duration) before it dims.

I don't have the above issues w/my Leaf given that my current Leaf doesn't have auto headlights. The moment I turn on Leaf's headlights, the dash and LCD go dimmer.

I posted basically this in another forum:
I'm annoyed by the Bolt's driver's side charging inlet vs. the center of the nose on the Leaf. If I park in our spaces for ChargePoint at work, if I want the cable to be in a where it can easily reach w/o going over my hood and contacting its paint or trying to route it under the car, I need to pick certain parking spaces, which might not be available earlier in the day. Or, if I back in to avoid hood and cable contact, it's a long stretch for the cable and I still may need to be selective as to where I park.

For a cluster of 4 spaces surrounding a dual handle station (below), I can really only park nose in for 2 of the spots to avoid paint contact or funny cable routing (possibly under the bumper). For the other two, I need to back in.

Also, for some spaces, a handle may reach fine to the Leaf's nose from far away but won't reach a Bolt because the inlet's on the wrong side of the car.

I may post a few pics/diagrams of what I'm talking about later.

We have https://www.chargepoint.com/products/commercial/ct4000/ with their spring-loaded cable management. The contacting the paint issue might not happen if they didn't have cable management (spring loading and attachment at the top) and just let the cables lay wherever like their old CT2000 series stuff (at the bottom of https://www.chargepoint.com/products/guides/). We had the CT2000 stuff in another building, but that's all been turned over to another company while we don't occupy that building.

For typical US charging arrangements, the inlet in the center of the nose is really best. I used to feel that way and this has been further reinforced now that I have a car where it's not in the center.

Thanks for providing the your very objective reviews. Yes, the Leaf's battery degradation and limited range is very problematic long term,
but having to deal with the many small issues you relate with the Bolt while daily driving, would be a total deal breaker for me. When driving
during my business day, I need to focus on solving customers' problems, i.e. not having to deal with annoying idiosyncratic operational
issues with the car I'm driving. Most on MNL would have to agree that when considering the Leaf's, interior, features, and overall reliability,
the Leaf is a very good BEV.
 
Thanks for the review!

You're saying you won't repeat what you said before (as if this place was easy to navigate)

One reason I decided against Bolt was charge port placement. It will always be a consideration. We have an i3 that chargers at the Webasto in Tumwater every weekday. (obviously works in the near area) and he won't back in. He prefers to stretch the cable to its maximum (his front bumper usually only has inches of clearance) I guess that is why he got such a short car... Cable too short for a longer one. :roll:
 
lorenfb and Dave: No problem!

To better illustrate some of the new issues w/charging inlet placement and the way some of our work EVSEs are positioned, see my crude diagram at https://imgur.com/a/cLkju2N. Sorry, was easier for me to hand draw something than to muck w/an editor.

Bolt's inlet is on the driver's side front fender. A and B are each dual handle station locations. Parking spaces 1 thru 8 are designated as EV spaces. 9 and 10 are edge spaces that aren't EV spaces, but sometimes you can opportunistically park there.

With Bolt, parking nose in into spaces 1, 4, 5 and 8 are no problem. To avoid the paint contact problem/funny cable routing, I'd need to back into spaces 2, 3, 6 and 7.

Spaces 9 and 10 are ok for a Leaf nose in. Space 10 should be ok for a Bolt nose in but 9 nose in might be a problem w/o funny cable routing, if the cable will reach (memory foggy, will need to check). 9 backed in will probably have reach issues and probs if a car's in space 6.

Also, if let's say both handles are taken on station B but some open handles on A and free spaces around B, it might be a problem to park nose in into space 5 and use A if there are cars in the way. Space 7 nose in will probably work, if it's available.

At my work, we have 2 sets of spaces just like that diagram. We also have some spaces just against a wall, imagine spaces 3, 4, 7, and 8 with stations A and B just repeating. On the roof, we have basically spaces 1 thru 8 with stations A and B repeating besides some wall spaces.

Here are some good things about Bolt:
- There are a ton of options for the charging timer aka delayed charging. I couldn't tell you about them as I haven't used any of them. Haven't had the need, yet. Best to d/l the manual from https://my.chevrolet.com/content/dam/gmownercenter/gmna/dynamic/manuals/2019/Chevrolet/bolt/19_CHEV_Bolt_EV_OM_en_US_U_84214429B_2018SEP10_2P.pdf and look starting at page 133 of the PDF about programmable charging.
- When you power down, it tells you how many many kWh used and distance traveled since last "full" charge. "Full" charge seems to mean when you last charged up to the target charge level you set.
- Starting on '19 Bolts, you can set what % SoC charging stops at, just like the video at https://insideevs.com/2019-chevy-bolt-gets-welcome-software-updates/ (skip to 1:38). It does look like it's 5% increments and the min you can set seems to be 40%. It seems like the "hill top reserve" option is gone.

OT: I don't have time to watch Bjorn's videos, but the huge VW e-Crafter van (which I guess we don't have in the US) is hilarious when it comes to its poor inlet placement. Skip to 6:30 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEPUTkEHi-g. He had to park really close to the station to get the cable to reach. Watch as he tries to open the door while charging at ~7:10. :lol: He asks "who the heck designed this thing?"

One really has to wonder about the designers and engineers at some of these companies and whether they've actually driven EVs and used a variety of public and workplace charging before.

I skipped to ~10:55 to see what his GOM estimate was after he charged to 99%. :)
 
One of the Chevy dealers near me has 2 2019 Bolt is stock so I stopped by after work yesterday to check them out and go for a test drive. One was an LT and one was a premier. I was upfront when I went in that I had no intention of buying in the next month but had the bolt on my short list and wanted to try one out.

Overall I thought it was a nice car. I liked the acceleration and range (obviously) but was also impressed with the infotainment system, large screen, roomy cabin, and responsive steering. It was a fun car to drive.

Some downsides to me were the weird white accents on the dashboard, the small trunk, the position of the charge port, and the price as both were $40k+ after dealer installed options and fees. There were also some nitpicky things about the user interface but those might just be that I wasn't used to it.

In comparing it to the new Leaf I definitely prefer the size of the Leaf, the exterior styling of the Leaf, the layout of the Leaf, and the price of the Leaf. For my particular needs I'd have a really hard spending the extra cash on the Bolt vs a 40kWh Leaf or even a comparably priced eplus. I know the battery is better on the Bolt but the Leaf just feels like a nicer car all around IMO

Despite me telling them I wouldn't buy one that day they insisted on running some numbers for me. They didn't really seem to want to deal or have any incentives right now which I thought was weird given that they are 6 weeks away from losing half the tax credit. The guy offered me standard financing rates and $1200 off MSRP which barely offset all of the dealer installed options they had put in there. I told him for that price I'm $3k from a Tesla...
 
The time to get a Bolt will be one or two days before the credit gets reduced - that's how dealership sales incentives work. Likewise always try to buy or lease a car the last day or two of the month.
 
There's a dealer 2hrs away that has the same car listed for $6k less. I'm sure they'd come down some I just thought it was weird they didn't come with a better offer than that if they really wanted to entice me that day.
 
golfcart said:
One of the Chevy dealers near me has 2 2019 Bolt
....
and the price as both were $40k+ after dealer installed options and fees.
...
I know the battery is better on the Bolt but the Leaf just feels like a nicer car all around IMO

Despite me telling them I wouldn't buy one that day they insisted on running some numbers for me. They didn't really seem to want to deal or have any incentives right now which I thought was weird given that they are 6 weeks away from losing half the tax credit. The guy offered me standard financing rates and $1200 off MSRP which barely offset all of the dealer installed options they had put in there. I told him for that price I'm $3k from a Tesla...
That's too high. That sucks about the dealer installed options. Some dealers I visited/checked their inventory online had a bunch of stupid options ordered with their cars like "Front and rear Black bowtie emblems". Really? $215 for that? That isn't worth $1 to me. Others had "LPO" floor mats aka "interior protection package" or cargo net. Cargo net I might pay but not $210 for floor mats.

One dealer claimed that Chevy makes them order $20K of accessories every month or year? I don't remember the time frame but it was the claimed reason why so many of their cars had stuff like the "interior protection package".

Most Chevy dealer inventory pages I looked at let you "view" the window sticker so you could see what each car had. Example: https://www.chevroletoffremont.com/VehicleSearchResults?model=Bolt%20EV. That way you could see if it was bloated with junk you didn't want and/or stuff that you actually wanted.

My Bolt had no dealer installed options. It just had infotainment package, driver confidence II and DC FC inlet on Premier. I wanted those.
golfcart said:
There's a dealer 2hrs away that has the same car listed for $6k less. I'm sure they'd come down some I just thought it was weird they didn't come with a better offer than that if they really wanted to entice me that day.
Weird on the latter. $6K less is much better. You could try using https://www.chevroletoffremont.com/VehicleSearchResults?model=Bolt%20EV to try to get them lower or some other dealer in your area that openly advertises a lower price. If that $6K turns out to be too good to be true, you could try dealing remotely w/a CA dealer and get the car shipped. I've heard people say good things about Rydell Chevrolet in Northridge, CA.

Before I ended up getting the Bolt, Model 3 started at $44K for MR. I did NOT want black paint and white was acceptable, so another $2K. So, it was $46K minus $3750 tax credit and Tesla won't negotiate. There might be discounting but that tends to be the exception. This is vs. under $37.5K (before tax. fees and license) for a Bolt w/all the stuff I listed minus $7500 tax credit and less sales tax due to the lower purchase price. Although the 3 has numerous advantages, it also lacks a bunch of stuff I want and use + stuff I'd really prefer to have.

I do agree that the '18/'19 Leaf interior wise is better and feels more refined. But, the LCD is much smaller and some people (not me) have real issues with that plastic in front of the shifter below the center stack intruding on legroom.
 
cwerdna said:
Most Chevy dealer inventory pages I looked at let you "view" the window sticker so you could see what each car had. Example: https://www.chevroletoffremont.com/VehicleSearchResults?model=Bolt%20EV. That way you could see if it was bloated with junk you didn't want and/or stuff that you actually wanted.

There is a high volume dealer in Northern Virginia with 40 Bolt in stock offering great deals that I have been doing exactly what you suggested with.

Koons Chevy Tysons

My only real requirements with the Bolt are heated seats since the smartphone integration, 238 mile range, and 200hp is standard. That puts me in the $34k + taxes and fees range at Koons, maybe a little lower if I negotiate. It's all probably a moot point since my wife is very anti-Chevy (she had a lot of electrical problems on her Colorado pickup so is skeptical of a Chevy EV), but I did want to give the EV competitors a fair shake before I buy anything. I may still put a real lowball offer in on one March 29th and see if anyone bites, given that the car will effectively lost $3750 in value on April 1st they should be willing to deal.

cwerdna said:
Before I ended up getting the Bolt, Model 3 started at $44K for MR. I did NOT want black paint and white was acceptable, so another $2K. So, it was $46K minus $3750 tax credit and Tesla won't negotiate. There might be discounting but that tends to be the exception. This is vs. under $37.5K (before tax. fees and license) for a Bolt w/all the stuff I listed minus $7500 tax credit and less sales tax due to the lower purchase price. Although the 3 has numerous advantages, it also lacks a bunch of stuff I want and use + stuff I'd really prefer to have.

I'm 100% with you on the TM3. Given my dislike of black cars I am looking at a $45k base price even with the recent discounts. I don't want a glass roof, don't want leather (or fake leather) interior, and don't need to drive it outside of a 50 mile radius since my wife has a PHEV that we use for road trips. The supercharger network is great but the gasoline network is better and we can get 300 mi of range in 2 minutes if we are driving long distances. The TM3 is a great car in terms of performance, that is undeniable, and the resale value will be better than the Bolt and much better than the Leaf... but I can't justify all that extra up-front cost and the uncertainty about maintenance given the closest Tesla dealer is 100 miles away and the parts currently cost a small fortune.

cwerdna said:
I do agree that the '18/'19 Leaf interior wise is better and feels more refined. But, the LCD is much smaller and some people (not me) have real issues with that plastic in front of the shifter below the center stack intruding on legroom.

Out of those 3 cars (Bolt, TM3, Gen2 Leaf), the interior of the Leaf suits me the best by far. The seating position and visibility are great for me, the size of the trunk (hatch) is perfect for by clubs or my kids bike, and I really like layout it just feels intuitive to me. I also thought the Leaf had the best regen and single pedal driving of the 3 cars. There is some difference in power between the three cars but all of them feel plenty quick around town and cruising at 60 during the morning commute is the same in any car.

The infotainment on the Leaf is the weakest of the three cars but the 7" screen is sufficient and I have a Garmin dash cam/NAV that I'll carry over to the new car regardless of what I get so I'm not too concerned with the built-in NAV on any of the cars.

I also like that the Leaf has 2-way charging making the V2H a real possibility in the near future. We have cheap electricity in VA so I wouldn't want to plug it in all the time but the idea of having the car as a backup generator during hurricane season is a nice perk.

If I could get a Bolt down around $33k OTD I'd have to have a serious talk with my wife... but beyond that I still think a 2018 Leaf SV with the cold weather package for ~$28k OTD and 0% financing for 60mo is gonna be tough to beat. I could drive that for 10 years and then give it to my kid if cheaper aftermarket batteries aren't available by then.
 
Back
Top